


Numb Fingers and Rattled Breaths

by Maymo



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Death, Character study... sorta, Emotional Hurt, Existential Angst, Family, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Is it character death if Scout comes back to live afterwards?, Its not as sad as the tags make it seem, Religion, Stream of Consciousness, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 23:08:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28590039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maymo/pseuds/Maymo
Summary: That brought him to a question that he had never really considered before in his life. What happened next?Or Scout is dying for real and doesn't know  what that means for him.Or what if Scout had been sitting in that hallway, bleeding out for a while before Spy and Sniper found him at the end of comic #6?
Relationships: Scout & death cause he do be thinking bout that, Scout & everyone
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35





	Numb Fingers and Rattled Breaths

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't fall asleep a few nights back and this idea came to me at 3am. I'm not one to pass up an opportunity to write Scout angst so here we are. 
> 
> Warning for lots of thoughts about death and some light mentions of abuse (it's only like a sentence though).

The blow seemed to come out of nowhere.

One moment Scout was dancing around the Spy bots effortlessly, loading their metal bodies full of bullets, the force of the shots taking off their metallic limbs and the next there was a sharp pain in his left side that made his breath catch in his throat.

Without thinking he whirled around, coming face to face with another Spy bot that had somehow managed to sneak up behind him. Its cold blue eyes shimmered in the dimness of the room and for a moment Scout felt something like fear run through him, setting off his fight or flight. Then his face pulled into a snarl and he swung his gun at the bot, knocking it backwards and away from him.

Before the bot could recover from the blow Scout aimed his gun at its chest and pulled the trigger.

Once. Twice. Three times.

The bullets tore through the metal plating of the bot’s body taking off one of its arms and mangling the rest of it beyond recognition. Sparks flew from the exposed wires, electricity still trying to course through the Spy bot’s ‘veins’. Despite the damage that the shots had done to it, the bot stayed upright for another moment, garbled robotic voice attempting to say one last clever line, and then the glowing eyes dimmed and the bot slumped to the ground with a metallic _clang_.

Scout surveyed the rest of the room.

Various robotic parts and metal bodies littered the floor in an imitation of the carnage of an actual battle field. Looking at the broken bodies of all the Spy bot’s made a sense of deep unexplained sadness well up inside of Scout. They were nothing more than metal machines created with the purpose to kill and yet Scout felt sorry for them.

Sorry that that was all they knew to do.

The sound of fighting filtered through the walls of the building and Scout was reminded that the fight wasn’t over yet. There were more bots to kill.

He moved to step over the body of a mangled Spy bot when he was suddenly hit with a wave of dizziness and he stumbled, tripping over the bot and barely catching himself on the wall. As the adrenalin from the fight filtered away it was replaced by a sharp throbbing radiating from his left side accompanied by an intense heat.

Still leaning against the wall Scout slowly pressed his hand to the spot where the pain seemed to be originating from.

It came away red.

He looked down. The first thing he registered was that his shirt was torn and he couldn’t help but feel annoyed at that. He liked this shirt.

The next thing he realized was that there was blood—an alarming amount of blood—flowing out of a cut in his side, painting his skin red and making his clothes stick to his side uncomfortably.

His eyes widened in surprise. He hadn’t realized that he’d been stabbed. It hadn’t _felt_ like he’d been stabbed, in fact, he hadn’t really felt any real pain upon impact at all. Just the solid _thump_ of something connecting with his side. He had assumed that he’d been punched.

Now, seeing the blood coating his hand and slowly beginning to turn his bright red shirt into a deep crimson the pain came like a punch in the face. He stumbled backwards from the force of it and his back hit the wall hard enough to bruise.

His side felt like it was on fire now, like a thousand needles were piercing the soft flesh, white hot pain spreading across his whole body, making it hard to stand, to think, to _breathe._

Scout’s legs gave way beneath him and he slid down to the cold concrete floor. The cold felt pleasant against the angry heat that was threatening to take over his entire body and he slumped down further in search of some relief.

Pushing through the pain he tried to think rationally. Tried to remember what he’d been taught in school about what to do if someone was bleeding out.

Try to stop the bleeding. Apply pressure.

Okay, he could do that.

Scout lifted one trembling hand and pressed it against his side. Immediately there was a bright flair of pain and he fought the urge to remove his hand from the wound. Instead he pressed down harder, biting the inside of his cheek at the burning agony it caused. He took a few deep steadying breaths to help calm himself.

So that was done. What now?

Look for help. Call an ambulance. Go to the hospital.

 _Ha_.

Scout wouldn’t be going anywhere any time soon. His limbs had begun to turn numb and he doubted that he would be able to get up at all, so walking anywhere was out of the question. All he could do was sit there and hope that one of his teammates would find him before the bots did.

He sighed heavily and then winced as the motion sent another stab of pain through his side.

This certainly wasn’t the worst pain that Scout had been in in his life. Not by a long shot.

He’d stepped on the BLU demo’s stickies once in his rush to cap a point and they had detonated. Luckily or rather, unluckily, he hadn’t died immediately, as it usually happened. Instead the explosion had blinded him and completely mangled his legs. The rest of his body had been badly burned and filled with bits of shrapnel.

He had lain on the ground, blind and deaf to his surroundings for who knows how long, writhing in searing pain, wishing that someone would just come along and end his suffering. Luck wasn’t on his side that day and he ended up slowly bleeding to death, body burned and broken and since respawn erased only the very last few second of memories before death the agonizing pain haunted his dreams for months afterwards.

Compared to that this was nothing. But compared to that he didn’t have respawn here to rely on. Once he bled out there would be no coming back to life.

The thought of that made him shiver. Or maybe that was the blood loss.

Either way, sitting there, all alone save for the mangled bodies of the Spy bots, he realized that he didn’t really want to die. Not here, not now, killed in some meaningless war that he didn’t even care about. Scout had barely gotten to live and already his life was slipping away through his fingers, just like the blood that he couldn’t stop from trickling through the gap between his hand and his body.

He was dying and there was nothing he could do about it.

That brought him to a question that he had never really considered before in his life. What happened next?

What came after his vision faded out and the blood that had pooled below him cooled. After his heart stopped beating never to start again and his body grew cold, as the life from it finally ebbed away completely.

During the battles, in the moments between death and respawning there was only darkness. Nothing more than an endless black void.

Is that what would greet him when he died for real. Just eternal blackness in which he’d be slowly driven to madness. Or was there some sort of heaven that awaited him instead?

Scout had never been very religious. He remembered going to the church when he was younger, much younger. Remembered sitting on the hard wooden pews and listening to a man dressed in white robes as he droned on and on about the sins of humanity, about heaven and hell and how only the honest and the pure would get to go to heaven. How those who committed acts that went against what God stood for would only ever deserve to go to hell. They deserved to be punished for their sins.

If that was the case and God really was real and so was heaven and hell Scout doubted that it would be the former that he would get to spend his afterlife in.

His life had been full of sins.

He’d stolen if only to make sure that they would have something to eat when his Ma could barely afford to pay rent. Pick-pocketed innocent strangers for money to make sure that they could afford the medicine that his Ma so desperately needed. Lied and cheated and hurt to protect his family.

Would God be able to tell the difference between committing sinful acts out of necessity and doing so to gain pleasure. Would he even care?

Would anyone care if he closed his eyes right then and there, never to open them back up again.

A breath rattled up his throat.

His Ma would care. 

Oh god his _Ma_.

She had already lost so much. The one person who Scout was absolutely sure deserved to have all the best in the world had been dealt the shittiest hand in life. Saddled with eight sons and no-one else to help her take care of them but herself. One shitty boyfriend after the other until she had completely given up on finding love. One son (the eldest) lost in a war he didn’t sign up for, closely followed by another (second eldest) this time in something as mundane as a car crash.

And now Scout—her youngest, killed in a war she didn’t even realize he was fighting in. Would they even tell her what really happened? Or would they just make up some transparent lie, leaving her wondering for the rest of her life what had actually happened to him.

Although knowing his Ma, she wouldn’t mindlessly believe anything she was told. If she thought that something was off she would look for answers. She’d tear the whole country apart and she would face The Administrator herself if that’s what it took to find the truth. That’s just the kind of woman she was. Scout wouldn’t expect anything less of her.

He knew his brothers would mourn too. He was their baby brother after all—the one they had watched grow up and had helped defend when the bigger kids picked on him. He might have been the annoying one and the loud one, but he was theirs and they would mourn all the same.

His family would be sad, but in the end they would move on. They had to. After all, they weren’t the ones who died. His death might hit them hard, but it wasn’t the first loss that the family had seen. They knew how to deal with grief.

What about the team—would they care?

Sure they had been working together for the past six years and Scout would have liked to think that they were friends, but he was never sure. To him, anyone who tolerated his presence at least somewhat was a friend. He doubted that the others felt the same way about him.

He thought that Engie would care—he’d always been very warm towards Scout, taking up a sort of father figure role in his life. And Pyro would care. He had become pretty good friends with the Firebug over the years of working together with them, to the point where he could understand their mumbles almost as good as anyone else’s speech.

Demo would _probably_ be upset, at least a little. He might pour out a bottle of scrumpy to honor his passing. Or he’d just drink it. Probably the latter—Demo wasn’t one to waste good alcohol.

He wasn’t sure how Heavy would feel. Scout had never gotten a good read on the larger man. Heavy never said much and he spent most of his time with Medic, so Scout had never really gotten to know him very well. He’d like to think that underneath the tough, serious exterior he would be just a little sad about his death.

But who was he kidding. Heavy probably thought he was annoying, with how loud he always was and how much he talked, never knowing when to shut up.

He didn’t think that Medic would care much. He would probably be happy to take his body though. He would have something to run his creepy little experiments on. Medic had always been a bit cold, interested more in running his tests than talking with his teammates. Heavy might be the only one that Medic truly cared about.

Sniper would probably be pretty indifferent. Similarly to Heavy, Sniper had never been one to talk much, but unlike Heavy, he didn’t spend much time around anyone, choosing to instead stay cooped up in his camper van. Scout had tried talking with him, since they were the two youngest on the team, but Sniper never said much and in the end Scout just felt like he was annoying the guy with his babbling. He seemed like a nice guy though, if only a bit antisocial.

Spy would definitely be glad that he was gone. They had never gotten along and he always took to reminding Scout about how annoying he was, how useless. Scout always tried to not let the comments get to him, always threw back snide remarks of his own, but Spy’s words _had_ stung, just a bit. Especially at first, when he had just began working with him. Spy had been so confident in himself and his skills, so self-assured, he’d been exactly what Scout had wanted to be like, save for the smoking—he had developed a strong dislike for cigarettes and anything to do with them after one of his Ma’s boyfriends had decided that Scout’s arms were the perfect ashtrays.

Scout had looked up to Spy (not that he would ever admit that to _anyone_ ), but Spy had made it clear very quickly that he didn’t care about anyone but himself and that he strongly disliked Scout in particular for no real reason.

Yeah, Spy wouldn’t care. To him it would just be one incompetent person less on the team. 

The searing heat that had been a constant presence in his side ever since he first pressed his hand against the wound was beginning to ebb away, replaced by a cold numbness.

His breath quickened.

What if God wasn’t real and there was no heaven or hell? One of his Ma’s boyfriends, one of the less shitty ones, had believed in reincarnation. Believed that once a person died they would be reborn in a new body and begin life all over again. Maybe they would have a better life the second time round, if they had been good enough in the first one. And if they hadn’t been good to others, hadn’t been kind, then they would get what they deserved in that next life.

If that was the case, if that was how this whole thing actually worked, then he couldn’t expect anything great from his next life. There were _a lot_ of bad things he had done in the short time of his existence, and that was not counting all the times he had ‘killed’ someone.

Did it count as killing if no-one ever actually stayed dead? He had always rationalized that since the people they killed in their day to day work always came back to life, it wasn’t actually murder. It had made him feel better when he sank too deep in his own mind on the bad days. He didn’t want to be a killer. Had never wanted to be a killer.

He had only taken the job because he was told that all he would have to do was run fast. They hadn’t mentioned anything about killing until the very first day of work. And no-one had told him about respawn either, so you can image the shock he had felt when he had taken a bullet straight to the head only for him to wake up a second later completely fine, with not a single bullet hole to be found.

He had spent most of that day sitting in the resupply room, jumping between being sick and trying to process what had happened.

That death had been fast and hadn’t given him any time to think about what came after. And he hadn’t spent much time dwelling on it afterwards either.

So yeah, Scout didn’t know if the thought of being born anew brought any comfort to him.

In his experience his life had already been painful and hard, and while he didn’t want to die right now, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to be reborn either. Not if there would be consequences for the actions he had taken and decisions he had made in this life. Didn’t really want to go through all that pain and disappointment that life had laid on his small shoulders again (definitely not if it was going to be that much worse).

It had taken him half his life to come to terms with how unfair everything in life was. The thought of doing that all over again made him tired.

Maybe he would get lucky and get reincarnated as a plant. That would be nice. He could just sway in the wind endlessly without a worry in the world. The natural elements would take care of his needs—the rain would quench his thirst and the sun would warm him when the harsh wind got too cold.

Cold. He was getting really cold now. The previous relief that the coolness of the floor had brought him against the searing heat of his body had been replaced by a sharp discomfort.

The cold was making him shake and he desperately wanted to get up from the concrete floor that he had been sitting on for the past ten? fifteen minutes? For how long had he been sitting here, contemplating life and death?

Long enough to make his legs fall asleep. Or maybe that was from all the blood loss?

He really didn’t want to die.

Death had never really scared him before. Not like it did now. It had made him sad and it had made him angry, but never scared. He had always thought that when his time came, he would look death bravely in the eyes and let it take him without a struggle.

He was struggling now.

Maybe it wasn’t even the death that scared him so much, but rather what came after. The not knowing. The uncertainty of it all. Not knowing if it was heaven or hell that would greet him once he stepped past deaths door, or if maybe it would be a new life. Maybe it would be nothing at all.

That last one was the one that scared him the most.

Being stuck in an endless blackness all alone forever and ever sounded more like hell than hell itself.

Scout had never been good at being alone. He had grown up with seven older brothers, all of them living in once cramped apartment. And then he’d gotten a job where he lived and fought together with eight other people. There had never really been a moment when he had been truly alone. He didn’t know what alone was and at this point he didn’t really want to know either.

He _was_ alone now though. Alone and bleeding and _scared._ It was starting to look like he would die alone too.

Realistically he knew that loads of people died every day with no-one by their sides, but for some reason he had always assumed that there would be someone with him when he passed. One of his brothers, or maybe even his Ma, because let’s be honest, with the way he went about life it was a bit of a surprise that he had made it this far. So maybe he should be grateful that he had managed to live to twenty seven. That wasn’t such a low number. Some didn’t even get to live for half as much as he had and here he was, complaining about dying too soon.

He was being greedy.

The lone light bulb that hung above his head flickered once, then dimmed, almost like an imitation of his own life right now—flickering and slipping away, not having enough energy to keep burning.

Look at him, being all poetic and shit. If only his teachers could see him now.

Blinking heavily Scout realized that he could no longer hear the sounds of fighting coming from outside. Did that mean that they had won? Or had his hearing just simply stopped working.

He squished down the quiet hope that had risen at the thought of one of his teammates finally finding him, now that the fight had stopped ( _if_ it had stopped).

Hope had never done him much good in life anyway.

He had hoped that one day his dad would come back home. That he’d apologize for leaving, giving him the tightest hug to make up for all the ones he had missed, and he’d promise to never leave Scout and the rest of his family ever again. He’d hoped that the teachers at school would believe him when he told them that he didn’t start the fights, that he had only been defending himself. Hoped that they would understand that he really _was_ trying his best, it’s just that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get it. Couldn’t solve even the simplest math problems or read the pages from the books without fucking up.

Hope hadn’t saved his brother when he was lying in the hospital bed, life draining away from his body and hope hadn’t gotten Scout him hired at TF industries. Hope was for people who either had nothing to lose or for those who had lost everything and had only hope to hold on to.

It was not for someone like him, who had lost a lot and had more to lose still.

Scout had stopped relying on hope a long time ago. And he wouldn’t let it come back now, in this moment, when all hope would lead him to would be bitter disappointment.

A cough tore out of his throat, rough and painful. It made dark spots dance in his vision and his lungs seize. Every breath he pulled in felt like it was too short, not bringing enough air back into his lungs, and every exhale he let out seemed to take a little bit of his life with it. It was almost like drowning.

It was like dying. _He_ was dying.

His fingers had long since gone numb and he realized now that he was no longer pressing his hand against his side, not that it had helped much. The athletic bandage that was wrapped around his hand had turned completely red and sticky with blood. Some of it had dried on his skin, making his hand feel itchy and, ridiculously, he found himself annoyed by that.

Here he was, dying in some random building in the middle of who knows where, and he still had to deal with something as simple and annoying as an itchy hand. He couldn’t even scratch it either, too weak to lift his other arm any higher than a foot in the air.

God, what a _joke_.

He coughed again, and it felt like his throat was being ripped apart. The tangy taste of blood filled his mouth and he couldn’t tell if that was from biting his tongue at the pain or from something much more serious. He wasn’t a doctor, but he was pretty sure that blood wasn’t supposed to bubble up his throat and fill his lungs. It was definitely getting harder to breathe and his vision was beginning to turn dark at the corners.

That was not supposed to happen either, and he blinked a few times, trying to clear it, but it only seemed to make it worse.

He was so, so cold now, and he was getting more tired by the second, even something as simple as blinking taking all of his strength to do. The pain had turned into a dull throbbing, and while it was preferable to the burning agony it had been before, he doubted that the numbness meant anything good.

He was going to die and he had never even met his real dad.

Scout didn’t know where that thought came from but it made his heart ache with the unfairness of it all.

Why had he never been good enough? Why had his dad left him? Was he really so bad, that not even his own father wanted to be around him? His Ma had always assured him that it wasn’t his fault, that he wasn’t the reason he left, but he had never quite believed her words. If Scout wasn’t the problem, then why had he never visited, not even once?

Scout wished he could have met him, could have been good enough to be worth returning to. His Ma never talked about his dad much, but when she did, it was with such delight and joy, like even being with him in her memories was the best thing to happen to her. He must have been pretty great if he had managed to charm his Ma in such a way.

His eyes burned as unbidden tears gathered in his eyes. He tried blinking them away—he would not be found with tear tracks on his face—but one lone tear still rolled down his cheek, hot against his icy skin.

Dimly he heard the sound of footsteps approaching from somewhere to his right and he opened his eyes (when had he closed them). He tried reaching for his gun, which he had dropped when he had first realized that there was blood pouring out of a hole in his side, but it was too far to reach.

The footsteps came closer and he braced himself, ready to finally meet his end at the metallic hands of Gray Mann’s bots. He took in a trembling breath, fully believing that it was his last as the bots finally turned the corner, except… those weren’t bots at all.

Scout sighed in relief as Spy and Sniper swam into view. Both of them didn’t look very great—Spy’s leg was bleeding and he was using a wooden plank as a makeshift crutch and Sniper’s whole chest seemed to be slashed open and then stitched back together again, and for some reason he was… naked? Maybe he was hallucinating.

He raised one quivering hand in a greeting, shakily mumbling… something…

He was floating away, like a balloon carried away by the wind, not really processing what exactly was happening around him anymore. He could barely hear what Spy was saying, _couldn’t_ hear what _he_ had said in reply at all, but it probably didn’t matter much anyway.

The only thing that came to his mind, in that final moment, was how good it was that he wouldn’t be alone as he died after all.

Darkness swallowed him up, taking him away from the cold and the pain, leaving him with only a deep sense of peace.

One last rattling breath escaped past his chapped lips as death's cold hands finally claimed him, softly guiding him into the unknown.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi to me on Tumblr: [maiiyoz](https://maiiyoz.tumblr.com/)


End file.
